| Abstract: | The article analyses the meaning and the forms that contemporary democracy may take, especially in application to the new regimes in Eastern Europe. The evaluation of developing polities always poses a difficulty, as one never knows whether an existent form of government is the final one that a state aims to achieve, or whether it is simply an interim effort to survive transition. Furthermore, there may be as many forms of democracy as there are different states, and the currently prevailing liberal form of democracy may not necessarily be the only or the best means to form a sustainable government. From this perspective, contemporary Belarus provides an insightful study of a regime that may be labelled as 'authoritarian', but in this article is arguably viewed as a 'demagogical democracy' following Aristotle's conceptualisation of a democratic state. I wish to acknowledge the invaluable support of INTAS (99-00245) and the British Academy (SG-31102 and PDF/2001/174), without which the project on which my quotations are based would not have been possible. |
